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Christ’s Object Lessons
principles that distinguish those who are one with Christ from those
who are one with the world have become almost indistinguishable.
The professed followers of Christ are no longer a separate and peculiar
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people. The line of demarcation is indistinct. The people are sub-
ordinating themselves to the world, to its practices, its customs, its
selfishness. The church has gone over to the world in transgression
of the law, when the world should have come over to the church in
obedience to the law. Daily the church is being converted to the world.
All these expect to be saved by Christ’s death, while they refuse
to live His self-sacrificing life. They extol the riches of free grace,
and attempt to cover themselves with an appearance of righteousness,
hoping to screen their defects of character; but their efforts will be of
no avail in the day of God.
The righteousness of Christ will not cover one cherished sin. A
man may be a law-breaker in heart; yet if he commits no outward act
of transgression, he may be regarded by the world as possessing great
integrity. But God’s law looks into the secrets of the heart. Every act
is judged by the motives that prompt it. Only that which is in accord
with the principles of God’s law will stand in the judgment.
God is love. He has shown that love in the gift of Christ. When “He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life,” He withheld nothing from His
purchased possession. (
John 3:16
.) He gave all heaven, from which we
may draw strength and efficiency, that we be not repulsed or overcome
by our great adversary. But the love of God does not lead Him to
excuse sin. He did not excuse it in Satan; He did not excuse it in Adam
or in Cain; nor will He excuse it in any other of the children of men.
He will not connive at our sins or overlook our defects of character.
He expects us to overcome in His name.
Those who reject the gift of Christ’s righteousness are rejecting
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the attributes of character which would constitute them the sons and
daughters of God. They are rejecting that which alone could give them
a fitness for a place at the marriage feast.
In the parable, when the king inquired, “How camest thou in hither
not having a wedding garment?” the man was speechless. So it will
be in the great judgment day. Men may now excuse their defects of
character, but in that day they will offer no excuse.